Awake Me Now!
Awake Media is an entrepreneurial startup company based in Santa Cruz California. In October 2008, we established our headquarters at the NextSpace facility on Cooper Street in downtown Santa Cruz. In January, 2009, we intend to formally declare our status as a California LLC or S-Corp, and during 2009 we intend to create media jobs in Santa Cruz, offer design and internet services, and create cutting edge entrepreneurial income opportunities, media products, and revenues from a number of media related sources.Currently, there are three principals doing business as Awake Media.
Founder and Creative Director Lakshmi Narayan is a world class internet business strategist, brand designer, art director, flash and web developer, and media professor at Cabrillo College. She has been an independent Designer/Artist and Strategic Internet Marketing Consultant with Narayan Design for 20 years, and has an impressive list of clients and a valuable body of work in her Design portfolio.
Co-Founder and Director of Business Development Marian Sun McNamee-Lundell is a producer/artist, writer/director, mentor and media entrepreneur at Virtual World Studio since 1992. She has mastered more than 100 different media production programs, produced numerous video/web/DVD and print products, and directed talent to fulfill client contracts for diverse media products and productions. She is a renaissance talent who brings a vast knowledge and experience to the business of helping clients monetize their business with digital media.
Chief Networking Director Allan Lundell is a long time silicon valley journalist, videographer, computer guru, technology researcher, creative consultant, and high tech talent scout. As Co-Founder and CEO of Virtual World Studio, he has kept the company on the cutting edge of new technology innovation, and he has cultivated quite a reputation for his “video verite” style of real life video documentary. He is a networker’s networker, and has collaborated on creating, documenting, and webcasting many conferences, websites, virtual worlds, and visionary media projects. In his spare time, he is also the co-founder (with Bruce Damer), and chief video archivist of the DigiBarn Computer Museum in Boulder Creek.
AwakeMedia, Roots in the Future
At Awake Media, we have been defining our business strategy and relationships during 2008, and have been making ourselves ready to join forces for the future development of our efforts in 2009. At this time, our most important clients at Awake Media are a number of local businesses and educational non-profits who need our help to design their web presence and marketing strategy, and cultivate the ability to use video in their community organizing and business development. We have clients who would like to offer their products and services via the internet, learn the appropriate media skills, and who would like to develop a way to monetize these activities, and also cultivate an online social network to establish and expand their business.
We have several opportunities to create a strong client base with enduring long term revenues, and we would like to capitalize the business for the first two years so we could have a staff of computer professionals to fulfill the needs of our clients. As our existing crew of media professionals is comprised of the talent to perform the work, direct others, and teach people to acquire these skills, we are in a good position to develop a strong talent pool for an expanding opportunity.
We intend to bootstrap our way to a recession-proof business using a revenue model which brings a lot of wealth, success, and entrepreneurial support to our Santa Cruz community. We will be facilitating the creation of a new kind of business model which will serve our own organization, and simultaneously, many clients who will join in our circle of networked small businesses who support each other’s success.
Our business model.
There are a number of components to our business model. First, there is the Professional Social Network. People are familiar with this term from MySpace and Facebook, but there are new refinements in this concept that are ripening even as we speak. For our purposes, a professional social network is a group of people who join a membership circle which is devoted to helping drive business to the members of that social network. The members can benefit by providing products, services, customers, and opportunities for strategic alliance and profitable collaborations to others in the network. It is easier to find the local people you need when there is a local referral network to search, and when you can ask someone you know for a recommendation. Additionally, it is easier to develop a custom team of specialists that can work together and fulfill your needs as your business needs grow. These will be the benefits of our social networks over a more generic social group such as Facebook.
Next, there are the online business opportunities. Every member of the Awake Media professional network will be able to establish an online business which they can use to deliver products, services, live events, and cross marketing referrals. We will design and educate ourselves to create many revenue streams among the member businesses.
We will make use of the Wholelife.com internet business support technologies to offer any or all of these turn-key online storefronts. The Wholelife model offers Commerce Nodes, Media Nodes, Community Nodes, Philanthropy Nodes and Personal Nodes as off the shelf templates for doing business directly through the internet. These nodes are "ready to go" to help individuals gather contacts for an online marketing mailing list or subscriber base. The faces of these nodes are easy to customize in order to offer products and services for sale online. Affiliate marketing of Brands and Product lines are supported in the commerce networks. Commerce node online orders can be delivered locally by courier services, or they can be delivered anywhere in the world via traditional mail services. Media node seminars and events can be delivered live to a subscription audience who can attend via computer, and ultimately also by cel phone. Community awareness, political activism, and philanthropy campaigns can be supported with online strategies that connect communicators with their people networks. And the personal nodes, like Facebook, will allow people to keep track of their friends, families, and cohorts with live feeds and shared posting spaces.
Awake Media, the Business
We offer knowledge, know-how, contacts, and customization. Our job is to consult with clients, design their online strategy, create their unique brand image and web presence, develop their media products, and support their efforts with online tools. We are a one stop shop, and we will attach the talent needed for every aspect of the job.
Our Awake Media professionals and customizable design templates will be available (at a discounted price for Wholelife Social Network members) to fulfill the design and customization needs of our client’s online businesses. Our commerce clients can use our help to get their products online, and to grow the online components of their business. Our media clients can use our services to produce and sell books, DVDs, live events, and other media products. Our philanthropy and activist networks can use our offerings to solicit charity, or bring attention to their current activities with as much or as little help from our staff as needed..
Awake Media is a resource for audio and video support for budding media nodes. We can consult and set up a client’s web/video studio by providing a gear list and budget, or we can offer use of our own video studio by appointment for local podcasters, or we can provide a video crew for live coverage of on location events.
The great thing about Awake Media is that our business grows step by step with our client’s success. We are all connected. The internet is here to serve the web of life, and we are happy to help create a win win scenario where we can all invest in the success of our community, our locality, and our planet. That is our vision.
Posted by Sun MacNamee for Strategic Alliance Meeting with Wholelife Connect, Inc.
Hi Lakshmi,
ReplyDeleteThis is Ramu. Looks like great work, especially in Obamaland. That's a riveting case study all on its own: the way he organized his campaign almost entirely on-line, especially his supporters' community activism and volunteer work. It doesn't get more wired than that in terms of scope and detail.
BTW, the recessionary trends here in India are turning out to be very good for 'alternative' media people like me. Most clients are cutting back on mass media, and spending more on targeted direct communications.
There will also be many talented people laid off from the presently overstaffed ad agencies; I'm sure I can find people to hitch up with me to help handle the business that's increasingly coming my way.
Don't know if something similar's happening there, but if it is, you should play your cards right -- always assuming it fits into your business model.